Profiling the personality profile

Picture this. One day, a blue bird flies into your room and you decide to keep it. The next day, you’re shocked to see the bird is now yellow. On the third day, the bird changes colour again – this time to red. And on the fourth day, it becomes black. What colour will the bird be on the fifth day? You have four choices:

If you chose black, you’re a pessimist. If you selected blue, you’re an optimist. If you went for white, you’re decisive under pressure. And if you preferred the golden option, you’re fearless.

Apparently.

That game, adapted from the popular Kokology series of books written by Japanese psychology professors, is one of the methods used over the years to determine personality types. One of many methods.

On most occasions, personality tests are straightforward. They consist of a series of questions designed to figure out your work preferences and thinking styles. Sometimes, though, the questions are really obscure.

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I recently completed a profiling test that wanted to know how I hold a pen and whether or not I get motion sickness. Another one a while ago had a question that went something like this:

Imagine you’re playing a game of Russian Roulette with a gun that contains a single bullet. Your opponent hands you the gun. Do you spin the barrel before pulling the trigger? Or do you just shoot?

The questions might occasionally be wacky, but the results can be revealing. Some of the most widely used – such as Myers Briggs, DiSC, and Hermann Brain – are based upon decades of research. It’s hard to believe that billions of people on the planet can be boxed into one of a handful of categories. Yet these tools can be freakishly accurate in pinpointing strengths, weaknesses, and job suitability.

A common problem that arises is when people become pigeonholed, and subsequently discriminated against, once they’re identified as a certain personality type.

It’s not uncommon to hear managers declare that they refuse to hire any more “Yellows”, or any more “ENTPs”, or any more “Ds”, or whatever other classification system exists. Personality profiling can be excellent when used as a way of improving teamwork, but when it’s relied upon as a way to exclude people, it raises questions about fairness.

One of the world’s most prolific researchers on personality profiling is Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic from the University College London. I asked him if personality tests unfairly pigeonhole people. He agreed … to a certain extent.

The questions might occasionally be wacky, but the results can be revealing.

“Valid personality tests do pigeonhole people into specific profiles,” he said. “However, this type of pigeonholing is more accurate than laypeople's stereotyping or managers' intuitions about candidates – and if you don’t use personality tests, you end up relying on these two inaccurate methods.”

He made the point that whenever recruiters review a résumé or conduct an interview, they’re still profiling people. But the methods used by recruiters, such as their gut feel or a bunch of behavioural questions, are far less accurate than a psychometric test.

Personality profiles “are not rocket science”, says Professor Tomas, “but they do highlight important stylistic differences between people, which are useful to predict their long-term patterns of work-related behaviour.”

He cautions it’s simply one tool for recruiters and managers to use in conjunction with other methods. But he advises it’s not just a one-way thing. Employees can also use personality tests to help them determine the kind of job and organisation to which they’re most suited.

“If we match candidates to suitable work environments, they will be more engaged and productive, which is good for both the employee and the employers,” he says.

He adds that it’s not a perfect system – much like meteorology. Sometimes a weather forecaster will predict a rainy day that ends up being full of sunshine. Most times, though, they get it right. Right?